Currently, there exist many base station antenna types, shapes, and sizes. An end cap of a base station antenna may snap onto a radome to seal and protect the antenna from adverse environmental conditions. The end cap may have a plurality of connectors attached thereto, to electrically connect other components (e.g., dipoles) of the antenna with an external device such as a receiver or transmitter. Due to the wide variation of base station antenna and antenna configurations, brackets, end caps, and other hardware may need to be customized for each antenna configuration, at least for securing connectors to the end cap for connection to other components. Design and implementation of this additional hardware may be burdensome and costly. Further, additional hardware may increase passive intermodulation distortion (PIM) associated with the antenna causing degradation of antenna performance.
PIM is a form of electrical interference/signal transmission degradation that may occur with less than symmetrical interconnections and/or as electro-mechanical interconnections shift or degrade over time, for example due to mechanical stress, vibration, thermal cycling, and/or material degradation. PIM is an important interconnection quality characteristic as PIM generated by a single low quality interconnection may degrade the electrical performance of an entire RF system.
As such, it would be desirable to have an end cap capable of supporting numerous antenna configurations and securing connectors without the use of additional hardware.